The Fifty-Second Story

Who was that woman? The one at the airport in 1998, standing on the threshold of two centuries and two worlds. Her auburn hair curled around the edges of a brick-sized mobile phone, a novelty of the time that turned heads. The woman didn’t care. She moved like she was used to being noticed, her high heels clicking across the linoleum floor. Who chooses to wear high heels to the airport? She looked like she belonged in a movie, not a terminal. In my memory, she also had a trench coat and a red fedora — and secrets and purpose. She was like a real life Carmen Sandiego.

The woman wasn’t a flight attendant but she stood poised at the front of the boarding line, which probably meant she was flying first class, or at least business. My mom and I were in coach with our mismatched socks and granola bars from home stuffed into a carry-on. At age six, this was my first time out of the country and already the woman in red was something foreign. Where was she going? Anywhere she wanted.

“I’ve got to get back to London” she said into her mobile with cool, determined precision. Except she was British, so she said it like this: “I’ve got to get back to London.”

Her accent wasn’t the brash kind from the pubs in the East End, full of dropped H’s or the sing-song of, “Anything off the trolley, dears?” that you might hear from someone’s nan putting on the kettle in a smoky cottage. Hers was shaped by a thousand lectures at uni, crisp as the Shipping Forecast, tip-top as Big Ben on the hour. She had to get back, but it sounded more like London was waiting for her. She was alone, she knew where she was going and she wanted to look good getting there.

I don’t know what else she said, but that single phrase – “I’ve got to get back to London” – has been an earworm of my life. A bullet in my brain. No matter how much older I get or how many new people I meet, I’ve got to get back to London is there. Its not just a voice but a chant, a mantra. It’s a house by the airport that someone refused to sell and has stayed put, built around and over by highways and flight routes.

I didn’t see her after we boarded. She wasn’t at baggage claim where my mom and I picked up our single suitcase full of our best clothes. She wasn’t by the fountain in St. James Park or on the cobbled streets of Notting Hill where I stumbled in my new glossy white Doc Martens. I didn’t see her in the tube or the fabric store near Piccadilly Circus where I picked out a length of blue velvet scattered with silver stars and wore it as a cape. The trip was magical, its palaces and parks and even the tunnels tinged with urine. So urban and raw that even the pee was impressive. People say kids won’t remember international trips, but London planted something in me – a dream maybe and a question. Who was that woman and why did she matter to me?

Sometimes I forgot about her words but then two, three, four years later, they’d resurface. I’d be elbow deep in dishes or half-awake on a twilight walk with my dog when I’d hear her voice, whispering like a spell. “I’ve got to get back to London.”

Is it Carmen sending me a message through time, over the tangled wires and twisting channels of our lives? Sometimes I’ve seen it that way, like I’m supposed to go to London. Since that childhood trip, I’ve returned a handful of times. The first was at twenty-four, high on a new side of the city – its pubs and the dressing rooms of Harrods trying on the idea of expatriation. A few years after, I came back and kissed a stranger from Germany by the Thames. That kiss sealed some kind of fate, and before I knew it I was flying from my new home in Berlin to London where I toasted my 31st birthday, just orange rind and soda this time. A brief work trip followed where I peeled back a truth: I wasn’t meant for the corporate world. In more recent years London has become a waypoint, leading me out of the city into the nature of the Cotswolds, the Lake District, places with steaming teas and clotted cream scones in stone villages where I can see the stars, smell the horses, read and deepen friendship.

Each trip I’ve found fragments of myself, pieces that I didn’t even realize I’d lost. Did Carmen steal something from me that day in the airport? Certainty, maybe, or complacency. She was a master thief, after all, who stole for the thrill of being chased. I’m not sure what she took, but following her trail always leads me to something new.

I’ve looked for her over the years but have only seen glimpses. A pair of high heels in the neighboring dressing room, a flash of auburn curls leaving the loo, a woman ducking into a cab and speeding away. For a long time, I thought I’d grow up to be her – elusive, globe-trotting, elegant. But now I think Carmen isn’t my mirror but my guide. Her heist isn’t a robbery of the future but a reminder to keep evolving. If she’s stolen something from me, it’s the ability to be comfortable with a life half-lived.

Which doesn’t mean I’m always jetting off to London. But even when I can’t travel, I try to answer the call. Because London isn’t just a place; its also a state of mind. I’ve learned that when I hear her voice boomerang back to me, it’s an opportunity to ask myself what I haven’t explored yet and what I haven’t faced. I don’t always know what the outcome will be, but her voice pulls me to let go of certainty and be more curious.

It was that same kind of pull that led me to create 52 Stories, a year-long writing project. I didn’t know what would come of it, but I felt the nudge to just start. So every week, for the last 52 weeks, I’ve published a story here on Substack. In the beginning, it was a place to experiment with form and a home for short stories I’d published on other websites. Then, about halfway through the year, a few days after quitting my job as a journalist at The New York Times, I woke up in a Covid fever and decided to write an essay about the experience of being in an uncomfortable life transition. It’s a valley of change that’s easy to rush through, but I had a hunch that the time would be more fruitful if I slowed down. I’d never written a personal essay before, but there was something telling me give it a try. That essay became another and then another.

I wrote about losing things, the art of sneezing, breaking up with Taylor Swift, my aversion to the color yellow. I wrote about nothing, about getting over myself, about learning to swim and getting lost on a street with two names. I spent more time in nature. I connected with my younger sisters, who edited my stories with love and weren’t afraid to tell me when I was being cringe. I’ve connected with other writers and artists and have appreciated the comments and messages that encouraged me to keep going. Writing has kept me present and prepared me to be unprepared.

Recently I was cleaning my kitchen, lost in a meditative trance of wax-on, wax-off, when something happened. I heard that old voice again, but this time it was coming out of my own mouth, accent and all. “I’ve got to get back to London,” I said, and even though there are reasons not to go – the winter, the weather, the bloody economy – I’ve learned by now that this intuitive nudge rarely comes with explanation or logic.

But in a way, it makes sense. I just sold my piano, and there’s a space in my life and a little extra cash. So I now find myself in a position to have an adventure. I’m not sure if that means a literal trip to London or if the journey will unfold in a more abstract sense, closer to home, but I’m confident Carmen will nudge me in the right direction, at the right time. For the moment, that part of the story is still a mystery, even to me.

And so, for now, that’s where I’ll leave off with 52 Stories. This year-long project was originally meant to be just fifty-two stories, but the experience has made me sure that this is not goodbye – just as a pause. A chance to follow some clues, gather more evidence, experience a little more of the world before reporting back. I don’t know where the next breadcrumb will lead, but for now, I’ve got to get back to London.